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Poor Henrik Ingebrigtsen. He competed Tuesday in the 1,500-meter final and actually set a new Norwegian record with his fifth-place time, but all anyone is going to remember is that his shorts busted open and his jock was dangling out by the time he crossed the finish line.
Let's do a more frame-by-frame analysis of just when exactly Ingebrigtsen's situation went from "Gosh, I really hope no one notices this slight tear near my balls" to "Oh, great, now everyone's going to think my balls are flopping out of my shorts."
All's normal at the start, although you can almost see the beginnings of a tear.
About halfway through the race, we've got a problem developing.
The problem is getting worse.
Nothing that can be done at this point. Just head for the finish, Henrik. (As fast as you can.)
He's probably never been so happy to finish a race (and run away from tens of thousands of spectators).


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Genetic analysis of over one million people identifies 535 novel loci for blood pressure
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Honor the Heroes of the Game, Preserve Its History, Promote Its Values & Celebrate Excellence Everywhere
"The most pleasant way of life is to have a job you love and I love football coaching. Money is relatively unimportant to me, once I've taken care of the comforts of my family."
(Miami - Ohio)...Paul Eugene Brown. . .Exceptionally successful coach at all levels of football. . .Organized Browns in AAFC, 1946. . .Built great Cleveland dynasty with 167-53-8 record, four AAFC titles, three NFL crowns, only one losing season in 17 years. . .A revolutionary innovator with many coaching "firsts" to his credit. . .Elected to Pro Football Hall of Fame before Cincinnati Bengals tenure began. . .Born September 7, 1908 in Norwalk, Ohio. . . Died August 5, 1991, at age of 82.
Paul Brown, perhaps more than any other person, is responsible for making pro football coaching the exact science it is today. When he organized the Cleveland Browns in the new All-America Football Conference in 1946, he started doing things no other pro coach had tried.
Brown had a background of exceptional success as a high school, college and military service coach when he was given his first pro assignment with the new Cleveland team. Immediately, he hired a full-time staff on a year-round basis and he instituted a system for scouting college talent on a scale never before imagined by other pro teams. In his handling of his team, he became the first to (1) use intelligence tests as a hint to a player's learning potential, (2) use notebooks and classroom techniques extensively, (3) set up complete film clip statistical studies and (4) grade his own players based on film study. Brown, always a firm disciplinarian, was the first coach to keep his players together at a hotel the night before a home game as well as a road game.
From the strategic standpoint, he started the practice of calling plays from the sideline by utilizing alternating guards as messengers. He developed detailed pass patterns for the offense that were designed to pick holes in the defense, but then he devoted his efforts to perfecting the kind of a defense that could counteract a pattern passing attack.
Brown built a pro football dynasty in Cleveland, posting a 167-53-8 record, four AAFC titles, three NFL crowns and only one losing season in 17 years. In the four seasons the Browns operated in the AAFC, they lost just four games. When the Browns joined the NFL in 1950, they continued their winning ways playing in the next six championship games and winning the title in 1950, 1954, and 1955.
Full Name: Paul Eugene Brown
Birthdate: September 7, 1908
Birthplace: Norwalk, Ohio
Died: August 5, 1991
High School: Massillon (OH)
Enshrined into Pro Football Hall of Fame: August 5, 1967
Presenter: Otto Graham, Former Browns Quarterback
Other Members of the Class of 1967: Chuck Bednarik, Charles Bidwill, Bobby Layne, Dan Reeves, Ken Strong, Joe Stydahar, Emlen Tunnell


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golfloversonline.net is a website on the Internet in Grand Theft Auto IV that leads most people to believe that the site is all about golf. However, the whole site is devoted to tips and tricks to get away with an affair under the guise that the person is going out on a golfing trip.
The site offers many products that will help with the affair, such as fake plane tickets and phony travel agents with "an aptitude for accents".
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.


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Photos of Twitter-Troubled Teacher in Aurora Surface [PHOTOS/NSFW]
Meet Carly McKinney, a 23-year-old teacher from Aurora, Colo. who is better known as CarlyCrunkBear, on Twitter. Miss CarlyCrunkBear is in a bit of hot water over her Twitter account and we have the reason right here.
CarlyCrunkBear is currently being looked at by the Cherry Creek School district in Aurora, Colo. due to some lewd photos.
Most high school students, and possibly some student's fathers would really enjoy hanging with Miss CarlyCrunkBear after school hours, quite frankly we would too.
The sweet and innocent looking CarlyCrunkBear (picture above) has dark and crazy side if we were to judge by these photos.
If you think pictures speak a thousand words, a tweet must speak a million:
We wish the best for this partying teacher, everyone needs to let loose every now and then -- next time she'll learn not to blast it out on a social media site.


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Every single one of us has some sort of big project hanging out there in our lives. We'd love to accomplish it, but it seems so big and the free space in our life seems so small.
Spend a monent and think about what your big goal is. It could be something as down-to-earth as a major home repair. It could be something as horizon-stretching as launching a new career or new business. It could be something completely crazy, like moving to Norway.
Whatever it is, keep that goal in mind as you read the eight tactics below. Ask yourself how you could actually apply each of these tactics towards your goal. By the end, you just might find that you've worked out a plan to take you from the mundane here to the amazing there.
Stop Thinking About Failure
What if I don't succeed?
That's often the big question that holds us back from taking big leaps in our life. We see something that would require a lot of work and energy and time and we can't imagine the disappointment and pain if it didn't work.
To that, I say who cares if it doesn't work? If this is your dream, the process to get there should be filled with fun for you. Even if the destination isn't what you dreamed of, the journey there will be fulfilling.
I want to be a fiction writer. In fifteen years of attempts, I have not successfully published a single piece of fiction. I keep writing, though. Why? Because it's a lot of fun, regardless of whether I succeed or fail. In fact, I don't even think about failure. It doesn't matter. I write stuff I like and keep sending it out, at which point I've already succeeded. Anything else is just icing on the cake.
Keep Your Goal Within the Realm of Reality
Goals like quadrupling your salary in six months are going to backfire and demotivate you. No matter how good you are, they're simply not going to happen.
One great way to make sure a goal is realistic is to ask yourself how much of the success of that goal relies solely on you. The more that relies solely on you and not on the actions of others, the more likely you'll find success.
Another effective tool is to get your goal reviewed, but we'll talk about that in a bit.
Take Small Bites Every Day
Every day that goes by, you should take some sort of action towards your goal. Take a walk for better health. Read a book for your education. Write 1,000 words a day (as Stephen King famously suggested for budding writers). Do something to stretch your skills or to learn more about the area where your goal is focused. Take an incremental step directly towards your goal.
The big advantage to doing this is that it keeps your goal always fresh in your mind while slowly reducing the size of the iceberg. You're always moving in the right direction, bringing that mountain in the distance closer and closer and always keeping it in mind.
Find a Mentor
A mentor is someone who can offer you unbiased and worthwhile advice about your goal and your approaches to achieving it. A mentor can fulfill more of a coaching role, pushing you along through the specifics, or more of a guidance-based role, offering you general feedback on your goals and plans to get there.
How do you find a mentor? Seek out people who are successful in your area of interest, as well as people who are knowledgable about the area you're trying to cover. Places to start might include your doctor, your social network, or your work environment.
Find Positive Support
Having people that you can discuss your progress with and who will support you in a positive way is essential for big goals. Good positive support fills you with confidence and helps you pick yourself back up after struggling with a particular goal.
This might not be your usual social network. Many people are often unhelpful when it comes to the positive support that others need. Do the people around you make you feel good about the things you want to do? If they don't, it may be time to start seeking out more positive people to surround yourself with.
Remember, a good, valuable friend is one who makes you feel better about yourself and makes you feel ready to conquer the difficult things in life.
Shred Your Routine
When we have a highly established daily/weekly routine, it can often feel impossible to find room in that schedule for the things we dream of doing. Our routine feels natural and it enables us to keep up with the day-to-day ebb and flow of events.
If you want to find room for that goal, shake up your routine. Start doing some things before work instead of after work. Drop an activity or two that's gone stale for you. Start taking a nap. Stop watching television or surfing the internet as much.
Shaking up your routine makes many things in your life feel new, and that's a perfect time to start working every day towards a big goal in your life.
Share Your Goal Widely
Turn the people in your life into motivators by telling them about your goal. When you share your goals with the key people in your life, they become a source of motivation to get up and do something.
On one level, you're personally motivated because you simply don't want to show failure to the people in your life. On another level, they will often actually motivate you.
Know Your Motivation
Why are you working towards this goal? If it's just something you want, it's much easier to put it aside. It is much easier to convince yourself to make the hard choices if you're making those hard choices for the benefit of others.
Learning something new because it fulfills you is an easy thing to put off. Learning something new because it brings value to others is much more urgent.
Keep that motivation front and center. Use visual reminders of your motivation. Put a picture of someone you really want to impress on the front of your refrigerator if you're trying to diet, for example. Wrap your credit cards in a picture of your children. These external sources will motivate you to make the little choices that build the foundation of success.
Good luck!


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Posts Tagged 'gordon liu'
'Til Death Do Us Part: DST "Kill Bill" Mini Homage
Diamond Select Toys continues their roll-out of Quentin Tarantino Movie collectibles with my favorite package so far, The Kill Bill Volume I & II Masters of Death Mini-Mates Box Set.
The Blood Spattered Bride…
This 10th Anniversary homage finds assassin Beatrix Kiddo AKA "Black Mamba" AKA "The Bride" (Uma Thurman) and her various sensai well armed and ready for action. If the heart stopping five finger death punch isn't in your bag of martial arts maneuvers, the well-honed samurai sword or array of battering sticks and pistols should do the job.
The Art Asylum designed figures include Pai Mei (Gordon Liu), Hattori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba) and – you guessed it – "Snake Charmer" Bill (David Carradine). Swappable body parts add variety to the 14 points of articulation on these mini mentors.
Die-Namic Duo…
My other favorite in the DST Tarantino series are Pulp Fiction's hit-men duo Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson). Vincent also comes ready to Batusi with Mia in the "night out" box set.
SkeletonPete Says…
Diamond Select's licensed Mini-Mates properties continue to grow as do my smiles at the ingenuity used to take the simple concept to new levels. Mind you, "mini" does not denote any lack of detail as DST gets these tiny titans correct right down to Lucy Liu's freckles and Samuel L. Jackson's jheri curls.


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For decades, the Gunite plant off Peoples Avenue has been a symbol first of Rockford's manufacturing might, then of its manufacturing decline.
The management team of the plant's parent recently gave an invitation-only tour of the plant to showcase $55 million worth of improvements in the operation and perhaps make it a symbol of the city's manufacturing renaissance.
"You've driven by the plant. Does it look any different?" Accuride CEO Rick Dauch said after the tour. "No. It doesn't. We wanted to show people that the inside is a totally new operation."
Founded in 1854 as the Eagle Foundry, the Gunite plant is the oldest continuously operating manufacturing business in Rockford. Crews make brake drums, disc wheel hubs and rotors, spoke wheels and automatic slack adjusters for such customers as Ford Motor and Daimler Trucks North America.
Gunite, the name the company adopted in 1932, went through a series of owners in the past 40 years. One started machining parts in Elkhart, Ind.; by the 2000s, much of the work on the wheel-end components was done elsewhere.
Employment shrank and management didn't reinvest in the operations, which had grown to more than 600,000 square feet. Accuride acquired the plant in 2005. When the Great Recession hit, large-truck sales plummeted, and it was forced to reorganize in bankruptcy in 2009.
Bondholders took over the company and recruited Dauch, who was CEO of Acument Global Technologies, in 2011 to take over the company. Before accepting, Dauch flew to Rockford to tour the Gunite plant.
He didn't like what he saw.
"This was the worst plant I'd ever gone through, and I'm including places like India and China," Dauch said. "You could tell this place had been neglected for years, and I went back to the board of directors and told them they needed to commit 50 to 100 million dollars in this place."
What was left of the company's work force wondered about the future.
David Buchanan, who has worked at Gunite for 21 years, said it was frustrating watching the plant slowly fall apart.
"We knew we needed to get management in here with a vision," the president of UAW Local 718 said. "I'm not going to say we were worried it would shut down, but we wanted the company to reinvest, and when Rick got here, you could see they were committed to turning this place around."
Rockford got a little lucky as well. Dauch and his new management team wanted to centralize operations, and building a foundry in Brillion, Wis., or Elkhart would have cost $150 million.
So Accuride, which is based in Evansville, Ind., closed the Elkhart plant and moved the work to Rockford. It moved most of the machining work in Brillion to Rockford, too.
Instead of a 130-mile supply chain, the supply chain is about 130 feet. Almost everything Gunite needs to make its wheel-end components some castings still come from Brillion is in Rockford. Officials said 98 percent of the steel and aluminum it uses is recycled because of the foundry. The work force, which was down to 150 UAW members in 2007, is up to 393 people, with 222 of them hired in the past three years.
The Gunite part of Accuride's operations finally started turning a profit in March.
Dauch said Accuride plans to spend $20 million next year on redoing the foundry, which hasn't been renovated in decades. It also eventually plans to move a warehouse from Batavia to Rockford.
These are all huge wins for the Rockford manufacturing industry, which in January 2010 had 25,000 employees in Boone and Winnebago counties. As of August, it has rebounded to 32,400.
Dauch said there's another reason for showing off the company's reinvestment.
"We'd like the city of Rockford to take a good look at improving the roads around the plant," Dauch said. Peoples Avenue is in one of the oldest sections of Rockford, and the surrounding roads are filled with potholes.
"It'd be nice to not have to worry about our trucks breaking an axle when they come in here."
Source: herald-review.com


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So far, I have heard Boris say "Hi folks" whilst waiting for trains at Blackheath. I've heard him say "Hi folks" as I interchange at London Bridge. I've heard him say "Hi folks" at Charing Cross whilst making my way to the underground. I've heard "Hi folks" as I scurried through at least three tube stations.
And I could just about get by with the occasional grumble on Twitter to maintain my sanity. But today, after hearing it three times at three different stations, I took a bus to Sainsbury's. The bus was full. It was too hot. Everybody was standing. And then, along came the aristocratic old Etonian who read Classics at Oxford calling me his "folk".
I'm not his folk, and he isn't mine. I never will be. It was only on the bus when I realised what a disaster the "Hi folks" recorded messages are. They make you feel as though you are living in a police state. I feel like I'm being told how to think, without any control over when I hear it. It's the same message everywhere, and it doesn't change. It's relentless. And it's starting to terrify me.
I realise that we live in a democracy, and that we're lucky to do so. But playing the announcements everywhere with such ease demonstrates that most of the equipment is in place to remove our democracy at any time. All the machinery necessary to tell you how to feel, and what to think is sitting there, and is ready to go. And that scares the life out of me.
And it's weird, because that Tannoy system has probably been set up for years, but I'd never noticed it until I heard it on the bus for the fourth time today.
Charing Cross photo by Flickr user Mike_fleming. Booming Boris Johnson from Wikipedia.


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A comment I often hear from chemistry teachers is that they are deeply interested in teaching students about climate change, but don't see how it relates to chemistry. One might argue that climate change is all chemistry, but there are some really great places where the IPCC report is a natural fit for a chemistry class.
Where is a good place to start? How about ocean acidification?
NOAA has a great video explaining ocean acidification and its effects on shelled sea animals:
This matches well with the IPCC report's figure SPM.4
Caption: Multiple observed indicators of a changing global carbon cycle: (a) atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) from Mauna Loa (19°32′N, 155°34′W – red) and South Pole (89°59′S, 24°48′W – black) since 1958; (b) partial pressure of dissolved CO2 at the ocean surface (blue curves) and in situ pH (green curves), a measure of the acidity of ocean water. Measurements are from three stations from the Atlantic (29°10′N, 15°30′W – dark blue/dark green; 31°40′N, 64°10′W – blue/green) and the Pacific Oceans (22°45′N, 158°00′W − light blue/light green).
But how could you teach about this topic? There are ample resources, for all age groups, on the CLEAN website.
This searchable database has scientist-and-teacher-vetted educational materials, videos, and lesson plans for simple implementation in your class.


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Today I ran a half marathon. When I crossed the finish line, I saw my dad running to me. His arms were wide open and he had the biggest smile on his face. These are the memories of my dad that I love. I've run races before and in less time, but he couldn't be there. I think, for him, having the time to see his kids meeting goals in life is precious and thrilling. He, of course, calls these moments, "gifts from god," but I don't care what he calls it, so long as he is there and supportive.
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Work Step by Step
From the definition of the logarithmic function on page 456, we know that $y=log_{b}x$ is equivalent to $b^{y}=x$(for $x\gt0$, $b\gt0$, and $b\ne1$). Therefore, $log_{4}16=2$, because $4^{2}=16$.
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If you haven't read the book "The Millionaire Next Door," put it on your list. It's one of many self-help books about retirement investing but among the few that might just change your entire mindset about spending.
Written by a couple of academics, the books is updated regularly. Its focus is trying to reliably quantify what behaviors make us rich and, in comparison, what behaviors make us poor.
Unlike many books written by professors, this is a good read, light on the numbers and nearly empty of equations and the typical economics fuzziness. The authors, Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko, rely on data but also relate ideas with concrete examples and actionable advice.
An executive summary version might go like this: You spend too much on things that don't matter. You spend too little on things that do.
Unlike most guides to budgeting or investing, Stanley and Danko decided to delve into measurable facts. They survey and continue to survey the currently wealthy and, from that data, try to learn what habits turn ordinary earners into extraordinary asset owners.
You know the wrong way to do it, of course. Spending on credit. Overspending. Spending to create the illusion of wealth.
Flashy cars are generally a waste of capital. Owning a comfortable home is no crime, but kitting out a mini-mansion with every imaginable luxury, well, that's why many people aren't rich. They simply work too hard to appear rich.
Meanwhile, actual millionaires share a few simple traits, Stanley and Danko found. They spend less than they earn. They buy traditional investments but also own real estate and private businesses. They defer income to avoid taxes and drive cars that belie their actual wealth.
In short, like folksy billionaire Warren Buffett, they might be sitting on major money but you wouldn't be able to tell it from their home, their car or their wardrobe. Buffett, for instance, lives in the same house he bought in 1957 and dresses like the Midwestern insurance salesman he truly is.
So, how are the rich-seeming over-spenders preparing for retirement? Not very well, apparently.
Much like their behavior in their working years, many people have grand ideas of how their golden years will go. Ameriprise Financial, the money manager, asked people how they imagine they will live in retirement.
The survey found that 78% of Americans believe they will have a retirement with few worries, financial or otherwise. They pictured travel, hobbies and time with family.
Nevertheless, less than half (46%) were confident that they will be able to pay for basics in retirement, things such as housing, utilities and medical costs. Even fewer (38%) thought they would be able to afford those hobbies and travel plans.
The same number admitted to not really even knowing the cost of living in retirement with any sense of accuracy, having not attempted to add up the eventual costs. Truly, ignorance is bliss, for the moment.
So, where are you on the scale? The survey respondents believed that they would need just shy of $1 million to make a go of retirement. The group (apparently a prepared bunch in any case) averaged about $700,000 saved up.
Nevertheless, nearly a quarter (22%) reported less than $250,000 in retirement money saved.
The bottom line for most of us is simple: Change everything.
Okay, maybe not so simple. It's hard to change one's way of doing things, and especially hard to change money habits.
But there's very little evidence that you'll get rich by chance or some fluke of the markets. Unless you know for a fact that an inheritance is due or that the wet spot in your backyard is oil, saving more and investing it carefully is the path toward the retirement you imagine.


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Our Disappearing Nurses
A nursing shortage looms on the horizon, not just nationally, but also here in Hawaii. Can the problem be fixed before it's too late?
(page 1 of 2)
Hob Osterlund is a nurse, one of those essential professionals we tend to take for granted, since they're always around when we need to have our wounds dressed, our babies delivered, our hearts bypassed.
But Osterlund, like so many Hawaii residents, stands on the threshold of retirement: She turns 60 in September. Therein lies the rub. Just as the baby boomers are entering their golden years in mass numbers — a time that coincides with a greater need for medical care — the nurses who do so much of that caring are getting older, too.
Osterlund, a registered nurse with a master's degree, lives on Kauai and travels to Honolulu to work three 12-hour shifts at The Queen's Medical Center. It's a job she especially values because the hospital has worked hard to make a national name for itself in her specialty: pain and palliative care. She's been a nurse for 30 years, and still loves it, although her commute is becoming increasingly expensive and the physical, social and economic ills of her patients have gotten more complex. Still, she has no plans to retire just yet.
Many of her colleagues across the nation are retiring, however, and their departure is contributing to a nursing shortage of serious—and snowballing—proportions. The AARP anticipates the nation will be short some 1 million nurses by 2020. In Hawaii, the deficit of 960 nurses recorded in 2006 is expected to grow to 2,700 nurses over the next 12 years—about a quarter of the projected need.


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The Big Picture: A 40-Year Scam of the Right-Wing Corporate Takeover of America
Tuesday, October 04 2011 @ 06:25 AM CDT Views: 3,513
Author and public intellectual Colin Greer tells us how we got where we are today. It's not a pretty picture, but hope is on the way.
By Don Hazen and Colin Greer
At this moment, there are growing protests on Wall Street in Manhattan, in Boston at the Bank of America, and in cities around the country. These embryonic and creative efforts are targeting the greed of the banks, the collusion of the corporate class with their corrupt elected officials, the high level of unemployment, the huge burden of student loans in a time of diminished opportunities, the increasing numbers of poor and hungry people, and much more. These protests, along with those earlier in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio, are signs of revival of a long tradition of popular revolt against excesses of wealth and the corporate class.
The new protests come after a long dark period -- specifically the last 11 years of George W. Bush and Barack Obama -- during which time conservatives have gained more power and ability to control the national debate than they have in the past 75 years. The current right-wing power presence, spiked by the corporate media's obsession with Tea Party protests, came most immediately as a result of the Great Recession caused by the housing bubble and obscene corruption of the banks. This crisis was exacerbated by large-scale anger about the subsequent bank bailout, and corporate-backed attacks on the health care reform package passed by Congress. But that is just part of the latest political news.
The conservative ascendancy is hardly an overnight phenomenon. Rather, it represents a dynamic shift in American politics that has taken place over more than 40 years, beginning in the 1970s. During this time, conservative billionaire donors, corporations and the Chamber of Commerce, all invested in conservative think-tanks and communications infrastructure, while Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and a broad and deep media network of right-wing pundits have come to dominate the public discourse.
Subsequently, the liberal/progressive side of the political equation has lost much of its influence from the period of the 1970s and early '80s. How this has happened over time is little understood. In fact, the lack of protest and effective organizing against the right wing during the Tea Party ascension especially has been a mystery to many, and a source of great frustration.
Colin Greer, a transplanted Brit, has observed and engaged in every phase of progressive politics. Greer is the author of a number of books (with his best-known being The Great School Legend), has been a professor at Brooklyn College of CUNY, and for many years has served as president of the New World Foundation, known in the philanthropic world for its commitment to supporting grassroots organizing and providing seed money for many of the most effective progressive political efforts over the last decades. Over this long period, Greer has had a cat-seat view of all the forces that have shaped our last 40-plus years. He has a big-picture take on the turmoil and politics of this period, as major shifts -- globally, economically and culturally; the tectonic plates of change and reaction -- have reshaped our world in ways we have yet to fully understand. AlterNet sat down with Colin Greer in his office in New York in late September.
Don Hazen: Why have conservatives succeeded so dramatically in this period, and liberals and progressives are arguably the weakest in decades?
Colin Greer: There is no single causal factor. The shaping of these two divergent paths begins in the 1980s when you had the last flourish of an expansive society. But the last three years of the '70s were characterized by stagflation and disappointment and took a great toll, forfeiting a real sense that the constant growth of openness in American society and economy was endlessly sustainable. Fast-forward to the present and we have the twin dominance of austerity, i.e. eviscerating public spending as the solution to economic crises; and aristocracy, represented by the protected tax and profit oasis of the wealthiest 1 percent.
It's instructive to note that events in the U.S. are not in isolation. Back in the '60s and '70s when progressive movements were in ascendency, the liberation themes of the time were part of a global anti-colonial uprising, and broad disgust at the war in Vietnam. Today, trade policies and globalization means that the other major economies of the world are also in the grips of a greed and hyper-profit which is in the process of discarding hard won values, rights and decent living conditions.
DH: That was Carter and also the hostage crisis too at the end of the '70s, yes?
CG: Yeah, it's about how social and economic consciousness changed. Carter's inability to act effectively in the hostage crisis or to defeat stagflation reinforced a national feeling of malaise and weakness. That's why Reagan campaigned on "hope in America" versus Carter's kind of dismal, high-standing morality, an apparent inability to act from strength. It was the beginning of a long term of undermining the presumption of multi-dimensional social and economic expansion, which had flourished since World War II.
So in the 1980s you had Reagan, along with the last flourish of direct political action on the left and the last gasps of the global social change that characterized the 1960s and '70s; i.e. the fight against apartheid, which succeeded in turning the Reagan administration around to support the anti-apartheid/ divestment movement, and you had the Nuclear Freeze movement.
DH: These were the last grassroots successes of the left?
CG: Yes. Although one can never do a one to one equation, the Freeze was a factor in Reagan's shift in nuclear arms negotiations with the Russians and the anti-apartheid divestment strategies, fueled by a popular movement with strong student leadership, which created shantytowns on campuses throughout America, helped win that struggle.
But then there was a dramatic change in direction when the air traffic controllers went on strike. Reagan seized the moment, and fired the air traffic controllers, destroying PATCO, their union. That was the beginning of the end of the labor deal with capital; a deal that was carved out in the Cold War in which labor got negotiated settlements here at home for its support for the Cold War abroad. In a sense it was anti-red internationally and social democratic here in the United States. And that deal went through the beginning of the 1980s, until Reagan, responding to the conservative base, changed the ground rules. And with it, labor's guaranteed negotiating strength ended.
We have seen a diminishing power of labor since. And we've also seen a shrinking power of popular movements on the left as well, so that by the time we got to the invasion of Iraq, a million people in the street could be ignored. How different that was from the last gasps of enduring popular protest against Reagan's contra-aid and its illegal processes.
DH: Those demonstrations against the Iraq invasion seemed like a big deal at the time, a major accomplishment, and around the world as well.
CG: Yeah, but for only one day. What is required is the ability to constantly bring people out and not end it when there's no popular response. You need to get the news story, and push the politicians to shift. We're up against the kind of new politics in which they didn't shift and we didn't come out with continual resistance, and that inability to resist played out in the 1990s when you have a Democratic president who was disappointing over and over, with no popular mobilization against his deregulation of the finance industry or his welfare reform initiative.
DH: Is it possible to have a popular movement against a disappointing Democratic president?
CG: I think it was in 1992, but only theoretically; it didn't happen. By the 1990s, because progressives in a sense had been disciplined by the reduced power of labor, by the new power of the right, the visceral fear that Republicans would be worse, and the fact that a certain amount of administration figures came from progressive organizations and might still influence policy, all contributed to a lack of action against Clinton policies And there is another crucial point: by the time we get to late 1980s and 1990s, social movements on the left were essentially demobilized into NGOs and legislative agendas, so progressive politics became more about winning elections, seeking legislative reform, and building not-for-profit institutions that represented progressive vision and options. There no longer was a base beyond labor, which was itself shrinking.
DH: How sudden was this shift from more popular movements to foundation-funded projects?
CG: It happened over time. The trends were growing in the early '70s because progressives had control over a lot of federal spending, and a lot of activists had access to all the major agencies. There was a kind of flourish of success and even progress under Nixon. Legislative efforts were working. We especially got environmental legislation, and it looked like the courts were on our side. Meanwhile the right, in earnest, started building both its base and its options, with think tanks, organizations and communications capacity. But by 1990, the left so to speak, except for labor, had become almost entirely dependent on foundation support, which was based in the IRS 501 (c) (3) tax structure which required grant recipients to be non-partisan. But it was influential at the level of government and so it felt like it could deliver through the lobbying capacity of NGOs and by winning in the electoral, legislative and judicial spheres.
In the '80s, when they saw the right-wing agenda through Reagan taking serious root, many groups worked on voter registration to expand the electorate, but were constrained again by the IRS rules. It took a Jesse Jackson presidential campaign as a reminder that you need a popular base to move an agenda and to build a popular base to undercut the climate of low taxes, high profits, and the growing transfer of public assets into private control. Jackson created a social movement—he went to organized farmworkers, he worked with gay activists, he really did see that campaign as a progressive, social movement campaign.
But after Jackson ('84 and '88) that kind of campaign mobilization didn't happen again until Obama. And Jackson did exactly what Obama did. He demobilized his campaign agency. He turned into a kind of not-for-profit organization, and Obama turned it into the Democratic Party. But they are two moments -- and it's interesting that both black figures produced the sense of a national movement. But the end of the Jackson campaign coincided with end of '80s, and that was where the Democratic Leadership Council, that Clinton led, emerged strongly and represented the shift to a "new progressive politics" where they made progressive mean something else. Imagine if the Jackson campaign had remained mobilized in relation to the Clinton administration and/or if the Obama campaign had remained live going into the 2010 elections when victories on the right were won by small margins.
DH: I assume when you say progressive came to mean something else, it meant moderate?
CG: In a sense once you had Murdoch and Fox and a growing conservative infrastructure, it labeled the DLC—transfused Democratic party—as the left. Any real left was marginalized into virtual invisibility and anonymity, the center was moved significantly to the right, and progressives increasingly pushed into protecting eroding rights and benefits, without a political infrastructure or national leadership of its own. In the electoral arena, in the media, and in the mainstream foundation world, moderate was called left or liberal, and leaders in pursuit of public office more and more have eschewed the liberal label by moving ever so profoundly to the right.
DH: So the middle became the left, and the conservatives keep moving successfully to the right -- a trend we have seen reach the present moment of the far, far right influencing the political process. And there has been no pendulum swinging back, that's for sure.
CG: Yes, and one of the critical ingredients in this huge shift rightward over the last few decades, as I inferred earlier, was the end of the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union had a profound effect on two things: 1) the idea that there was a left alternative, and that there was a path to reform that had the best interest of the public at large as its highest priority, and had the "state" involved directly in business and the interest of public; and 2) the shift of states in the Soviet orbit to capitalism basically made capitalism the world model. So then it was a question of what you did in the framework of capitalism, not challenging its framework. That's been the umbrella for China, India, Brazil. All over, left groups moved into the electoral arena, and didn't challenge the capitalist model. As a result, we now have a global context that advances austerity and aristocracy in support of a global capitalism that has declared war on the social contract.
In the Scandinavian model, they're more responsive to public conditions, but not to challenging capitalism itself. I'm not arguing that we need a left to challenge capitalism because it isn't clear that we do have that option. But what we're faced with now is that any system that has monopoly status moves toward tyranny. So we're now seeing that 40 years of the rogue rise of the right has produced a tyrannical right. All of the conditions, the improvements around tolerance and cultural openness and responsibility for the poorest of the poor, the perspective that a healthy society is one that has a priority to care for all its people -- those standards have so diminished so that you have candidates now talking about the fact that people may have to starve. And that's now a legitimate thing to say. Killing gets cheered by the GOP grassroots. The four GOP debates so far are really interesting because they indicate something really seriously bad.
DH: The rise of the Tea Party, aided by its intense promotion by the corporate media, has given the public the sense that there is a powerful angry grassroots movement underway. How does that play out?
CG: Tyranny grows first of all in the establishment of a legitimation of its point of view, even on the margins. You can see it in Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry, a war hero, and with Murdoch and Roger Ailes growing Fox. There is the constant testing of a model that is very similar in tone to the most successful moment of progressives in the 1960s. It reaches into high levels of rhetorical hysteria. When we were on the streets 40 years ago there was a kind of hysteria -- police were the enemy. There's a similar level of hysteria now. What that means is basically that on the road to power, most people committed to power will use the "crowd" -- they construct a crowd. You need the crowd, even if it's only a tiny fraction of the population. If the crowd is visible through spectacle then you start conditioning the public's readiness to act, and you encourage readiness of others not to act.
So in the present political reality, you have the convergence of the crowd's mentality, with the readiness to be tyrannical in leadership, with leaders in Congress like Jim DeMint, Eric Cantor, and of course funding for it all from the Kochs. This tyrannical style of leadership has grown through the Bush years to a dramatic level, and has not been effectively challenged by Obama. You have the growth of the crowd and the paralysis of public at large. When you look at poll data there is no way in which the public agrees with the Tea Party or with right-wing political figures, but it is paralyzed, and paralyzed serially over time.
A million people on the street didn't get listened to over the Iraq invasion, or the defeat of Kerry through usurping of the public stage by Swift Boat in 2000. Then the inability of Gore to fight for his election followed by the Supreme Court decision which gave us eight years of Bush. The choice to fight or not is rarely a popularly held prerogative until the public bursts forth as perhaps in the Arab Spring. Until such moments, leadership is top down, especially in the electoral arena, where money and incumbency determine authority and good judgment.
The Tea Party is the latest in a series of experiments -- remember the Promise Keepers and the Christian Coalition back in the '80s -- to advance right-wing politics from the margins to a new center. We've been holding them off time and time again but not by producing anything for the future. Instead we have benefitted from the cultural victories of the '70s and '80s that have become enshrined in entertainment conventions and interpersonal lifestyles. In both realms we have taken great strides to persuade Americans that young people should have the vote at 18, that women are equal, that abortion is pretty much something you can argue rhetorically but hard to lose practically, but now we're losing ground on everything. The death penalty for a while looked like we were humane, we don't just kill people -- we're losing ground on that. We didn't go to war casually -- we've lost ground on that.
DH: Without tension of competing systems, is there an inevitable march to the extreme? Is there a theory that most extreme seems to always win out?
CG: The fact is, a society grows into tyranny over time as the most powerful cultivate extreme crowd behavior, which, unless resisted can have a contagion effect into the public at large, paralyzing resistance and recruiting frightened supporters. While clearly minority politics, the Tea Party zealots who cheered at death and execution much as Sarah Palin once called on us to "Drill, baby, drill!"ought to be a reminder and a warning. But I don't know any mainstream media that treated the cheers for the death penalty and barbarous inhumanity to the sick as a story truly worth engaging. The crowd is the critical thing that tyranny requires eventually -- the mobilization of the crowd. With recessions every 10 years, the circumstances periodically creates the possibility for angry people to be organized into a crowd. Progressives did that. The New Deal was about using the circumstance of the depression to organize a progressive crowd.
DH: Mostly organized by the Communist Party. But we have no capacity to do that now?
CG: and the Socialist party. But there was a plethora of organizations. And no, we have no apparent capacity do that now, although we desperately need it. New protests and organizing efforts are definitely sparks of hope. But that kind of action is primarily on the right.
DH: It's a resource question, too?
CG: Yes, and it's also a planning and leadership question. The Socialist party, Catholic Workers, Communists -- they were planners, they had an agenda not limited by electoral and legislative politics, and not dependent on foundation resources for scale. Forty years ago a dozen small progressive foundations could help support strong action and analysis. The big checks now come from professionalized, very mainstream foundations that do not, as was the case with the earlier funders, institutionally identify with a progressive world view.
DH: The Kochs write the big checks for the right today. So is the weakness primarily an issue of class -- resources staying in the educated class?
CG. No. It is that and it is something deeper, more psychological. When I was in England a bit ago, I was talking to a Syrian cab driver, this was in the middle of the Arab Spring. I said, why is it that you've got (this was before the riots) English kids protesting at Trafalgar Square against tuition increases? You've got women in Rome -- a million people -- protesting against Silvio Berlusconi. The next day they've all gone home, the kids have gone home. In America we had the resistance against the Iraq war, they went home. But in Egypt they came back every single day. In Yemen they come back every day. And he said, "Well, we in the West have freedom. They don't have the freedom."
So there is someway in which we have the consciousness here that we have something that could be lost that we don't want to risk. In the Middle East, there is nothing left to be lost.
DH: So fast-forward to the present. How has the right-wing philosophy which has dramatically increased its influence, changed the nature of government?
CG: What we are up against is the constant reduction of compassion as the highest priority in how you make public policy and deliver public goods. The right wants to take public space. They want to take public resources. In response, progressives get lost in the message of to trying to re-instill belief in government. With the government argument, I think we're missing the point, both in terms of compassion but also that it's not not about belief in government. It's about who owns government and what it's for. Despite the right's anti-government rhetoric, their practice is pro government. But it is government for them. So we must challenge the principle of who owns government. We are saying they've diminished the belief in government, but why does Rick Perry want to become president of the United States and, in effect, CEO of the nation's investment engine, that is, government.
It's not because he doesn't believe in government, it's because he wants to control government. They want to control and privatize government resources. Capitalism is exhausted here. It needs more public money. It's always needed public money, it needs more now. When you look at the growth of capitalism in America from railroads all the way to the computer, it's publicly funded. I say to people what do Velcro and GPS have in common? They were both created by the military. And who is making a profit from that? Does the public get any return for its investment?
But if we had a conception of government that was not only tax agent, service deliverer, but also an investor in the economy like a bank, and it was entitled to a return just the way a bank gets return, we'd have plenty money. But we don't treat ourselves as the investor. But every major technological growth has been publicly invested in. If we were a shareholder in Microsoft because we invented the computer, it would be a very different terrain. So the reinvention of capitalism is the issue, and the reinvention of government is what is happening. So capitalism is directly claiming public investment now.
DH: Can you provide a current example of the privatization impulse?
CG: Charter schools are a very good case study for the impulse. Forget anti-unionism; forget whether or not they work, because they don't. But even if they did they are not cheaper. Charter schools are simply the transfer of public money to profit-making activity. That's the system they are steadily building -- prisons, schools, public parks, there's a conversion of the whole system into an investment of capital which is a major extension of what's always been true.
It's a way of government supporting the expenditure of money, but it has been organized so that it stays in private control. And in private control it's become increasingly privileged in how the decisions are made. So you've got hedge fund people now funding charter schools -- they are the largest engine behind charter schools. And so they care about education. Some of them even believe public schools are so bad we need this alternative.
But there's not a lot of thinking about about whether profit is compatible with learning. If profit is the major goal and keeping costs down is the major goal, then how do you have learning be the major goal? That's exactly the contradiction. If you're going to have learning be the major goal, you have to invest in it like you would a war. You don't in a war say the major goal is how to make profit and we'll only fight the war according to the profit.
DH: With the enormous investment in military arms, and more recently mercenaries, it seems like we are headed there.
CH: Well, that is one reason we have more war. But in the end you can't sell to the public that the measure of our success here is profit. And in education, were saying basically you can trust profit. The market will give you better results. There's no reason to believe that. The public hasn't accepted it, although it's getting pushed on them because of the power that's established in the state houses. Also, what's not well understood, is there are three kinds of charters. So the privatization has three identities and they're being merged. One is public school experiments with the charter system. The second is not-for-profit charters run by not-for-profit organizations are closer to the base. The third is the for-profit charter.
The first two models are perfectly fine. We have private schools and parochial schools which have tax exemptions so they're only quasi private. Those two forms are part of the American education fabric, so having another thing called charters wouldn't be a problem. It's nice to experiment with different forms of government organization and curriculum. But the for-profit charter is a very different entity and to allow it to be conflated with the other two is basically to let the Trojan horse in.
DH: As a longtime foundation executive, how has philanthropy exacerbated the progressive weakness?
CG: Foundations mostly gave money according to sociology or class, so people gave money to organizations led by people most like them, or slowly there was entry of people who were not like them but were being identified by people like them, and also very little money when you think about it. If you take the most successful community based organization in philanthropy at community based building level, it's probably SCOPE in Los Angeles.
And they went from a $5,000 grant to its founder from New World Foundation to a $3 million, maybe a $4 million budget, which took 25 years to get to. We have a number of very strong local and state organizations that have built powerful bases to influence local politics, pioneering such inventions as "living wage," and "community benefits." But to date this is a record of policy reform and some electoral victories for local leaders, all of which is very important. It is, however, not yet a coherent, comprehensive and compelling base for challenging the structural realignment of capitalism in our time.
DH: What are the consequences of that lack of a base to challenge the excesses of capitalism?
CG: So middle-income workers and people in impoverished communities are all under serious attack by this realignment, and are not yet organized in an aggressive agenda of their own within a worldview they share. I think there's a sense that we have more to lose than to gain in such action at this time, but time may be running out on that one. Most people do have a certain level of freedom, they have a lot of harassment -- but they have a certain level of freedom. And for the average African American who is now 25 -- they have family that experienced the change so they are freer than they were.
They don't get off the street curb when they're coming up to a white person. They can be on the street with a white date or partner. There have been significant changes, not necessarily lasting changes, but changes that make you feel you've got something. The real danger is now that the economy can't produce the benefits it was producing, and the greed in capitalism has gone to such an extreme, that the Captains of capitalism seem not to be concerned about the social order dangers that the extreme inequalities create, which opens the gates to fascism.
When you have the a tyrannical crowd, you have the tendency to tyranny, you have the crowd behaving the way they did in those four Republican debates. So while they're only a minority, they're setting a tone. In the first debate nobody was willing to say that a dying child, a very ill child, should get medical care. In the second debate you've got cheering for the death penalty. In the third debate you've got the call to kill, for a young man who's on life support. And in the fourth debate the gay soldier is booed. So you've got this extreme hysteria that is not being challenged.
DH: So you can imagine serious political repression here in the USA? Where is the hope?
CG: I think we know what's going to come down. I think people know. People are afraid. There's an implicit fear. And also there are moments when spontaneity breaks out. Who knows, we may be lucky enough that spontaneity e.g. at Occupy Wall Street that will help produce a social movement. And all that's been funded and developed will be ready to move. We don't have that now. There was a kind of serial violence that you couldn't have predicted, when Martin Luther King was assassinated. The Nuclear Freeze movement was not predictable when it suddenly flourished. You can't predict them. But it's obvious why after they happen.
So we don't know that we don't have the ground for something major to happen. In almost every state, strong organizations have been developed that might well be the basis for movement capacity when forces outside of their own terrain call them to new and unified action. If one looked at the black churches before the Civil Rights Movement flourishes of the 1960s, they probably would not have looked as strong one by one as they did when called to unified action. So too with their leaders. Indeed, so too with the Tea Party and right-wing movements. The external call for the latter has been heavy duty private money and a driving corporate agenda that is committed to reversing the deals it made since the 1930's.
But what's observable is the right has established an ideology and a worldview, a sense of what's right and what's wrong that has captured enough of public to dominate news with visible activism, and to paralyze public at large. That doesn't mean they can hold onto it, but that's the phenomenon were facing. The economy has no ability to buy the public back into the equation. This recent disaster relief controversy is an example. We are unable to buy back into the equation of what looked like we had won forever -- that is the public good. We've lost a major piece of the ideology that was built over 40 or 50 years -- that we care about people in pain. If we don't have the ideolology that we care about people in pain as your basic ethical compass, then you have the kill mentality. Because we're always balancing between compassion and fear. If compassion doesn't dominate and you don't have resources to feel you can be compassionate without paying a high price yourself, then you're going to turn to fear to protect what you've got, or reach your hand out for what you can get.
I think the health care debate is an interesting case to consider in all this. Obviously, the social benefit is intrinsic to a progressive perspective. The kind of health care reform we've received is, for a variety of reasons, insufficient and insecure. Foundation funding for advancing public education and lobbying ran to the millions of dollars but it was all silo policy oriented and for the most part, top down. If that kind of money could have been used to help build a comprehensive foundational commitment to social welfare and organizational capacity, a partial achievement might well have helped produce a powerful movement advance.
DH: Does that loss of the moral compass, along with the fear, have to translate into passivity? How do we combat that?
CG: Well, I don't know that were not doing some of what is necessary. We have to reinvest in the ideology… lots of organizations have gotten lost in the idea that you have to invest in resurrecting belief in government. This is about messages. Elections may be fought on messages. Social movements are about consciousness. We have still to invest psychically, financially and organizationally in rebuilding a shared consciousness for a threshold number of Americans that is characterized in the idea that we want a compassionate society and that government is the best vehicle to deliver that.
One thing I didn't mention about the '80s that the assault on government that Reagan led, the left created earlier. We talked about problems of welfare system, about the ineffectiveness of the education system -- that was us. Cloward and Piven, me, everybody. We undermined that system. We didn't have a sense, probably because we were young, that you win a victory and then you evolve the maturity of that victory. We wanted it to be correct, and the right will suffer the same hubris -- they're moving way beyond their ideological reach, beyond the ability to deliver it.
DH: So, what happens in the interim? What about political repression?
CG: As Eric Cantor said, "People could starve." He said, "If you haven't saved for a rainy day yourself, that's your responsibility."
That's the opposite of compassion; that generates fear. And if you have violence on the street, they will have their own excuse for political repression. If there is an excess of even the right-wing on the street you could have the excuse of police intervention that looks like it's in public interest. But we have work to do, not least is to protect the moment. By that I mean, we should give serious thought about the impact of colluding in the electoral defeat of this president by undermining him publicly and reducing his viability as a candidate. The alternative is truly dangerous.
At the same time, we must think of ourselves in a political era that calls for breaking from the conventions of recent political discourse that has narrowed our social and political vision. It's time to name what is happening in our country without hysteria, but to be clear that the next elections are part of a struggle for a social and cultural threshold that will determine the quality of life and democracy in this country.
And we need to keep in mind what's always been true in the politics of social movements -- they are the province of the young. Just look for example at how the brave young people in the Dream Act campaigns have actually won victories against inhumane ICE practices. They took and they take risks. Now, as other young people are stepping up to make powerful statements, take risks, try new tactics, they need our support and understanding.
Don Hazen is the executive editor of AlterNet.
Colin Greer is president of the New World Foundation in New York. Among his books is A Call to Character (HarperCollins, 1995).


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Portal 2 for PS3
Released today I got it yesterday. Kind of lucky as it integrates with Steam via the Playstation Network and today it seems the PSN is offline.
First things first - do you need to have played the original Portal to play this? No, but it really helps if you have as some of the cutscenes assume some knowledge of previous events. Play-wise though, no all the elements get re-explained.
For those who haven't played it really is quite simple.There are two portals - blue and orange; walk through one and you come out the other; during the game you get given a gun that can place these portals almost anywhere you like. Use this to solve the puzzle rooms you find yourself in.
I'm going to try to avoid spoilers, which is a shame as some of them are just really funny.
You start with a basic movement tutorial disguised as exercise - look up, look down, move here, look there. From the outset the humour and atmosphere come through - you're in a corporation and they're going to do the most cost-effective minimum they can get away with. Then things change and once again the atmosphere comes through with the "nine, nine, nine..." and the revelation of the sheer scale of the facility you're in.
The next part of the tutorial will be familiar to the players of the original as it's almost exactly the same with the same rooms; it's a nice touch. As with that you start off with portals provided for you so as to get used to them, then you gain the ability to fire a single portal and then finally back to two. One thing I will say is that the physics tutorials particularly momentum isn't quite as well handled. I can certainly imagine some people getting stuck at how to fling themselves over gaps. This carries through to some of the new elements you do have to work out how they function yourself.
Saying that though the initial puzzles themselves do introduce these elements in simple terms so you can get used to them but they can ramp up quite quickly. Once I started with the hard-light bridges some of puzzles actually had me stopping to work out how the proper combination of events and I even had to scratch my head a couple of times. Most of the time I spent in the rooms though was just looking around; yes it's that pretty.
Saying that though there are still some graphical slights. In the initial room, possibly due to its construction, seams could be seen between the wall and ceiling; as the room was shadowed here the hard white light shining through was quite noticeable; haven't noticed it since. Some of the textures aren't quite as highly detailed either; although some of this can be attributed as 'decay' some of the wall paintings/scribbles were quite pixeled/jagged and certain lettered textures that you'd expect to be able to read were unintelligible. I'm surprised at this for two reasons - firstly every other texture is very good, in one section a set of tiles had been removed from the floor and the 'glue' swirl markings were visible - each was different. Secondly memory couldn't be in that short a supply as each level was separate.
That brings me to the one real fault of Portal 2 which has been mentioned by most other reviewers - the loading. The original Portal you got maybe three levels before you hit a load while in an elevator. With Portal 2 it's every level and sometimes occurs while you're travelling down a corridor in an air-lock type situation. They don't take long, 10-15 seconds maybe, but it does just throw you out of the game a little; particularly if you've played the first game and can thus whiz through the initial tutorials it starts to feel like - level, stop, level, stop, level , stop all in quick succession. I'm not sure what's going on there, but I'm curious as to why a two room level needs to be loaded up all by itself when the initial expanse doesn't.
There have been some small alterations in gameplay. The tutorials now feature directional arrows to your next objective to help you along, but the biggest change is being able to see portal locations through walls. This is very useful as it's possible to flung around the chambers and thus lose your relative position. Being able to see where those portals you fired now are helps orientate you and also helps avoid situations of sending something the wrong way because you thought the exit portal was over 'there'.
Outside the game Steam integration was seamless if you haven't a Steam account it just creates one using your PSN identity. The whole process of creation, sign in and status required me to press just one button. Why would I want to sign up for this - Portal 2 features cloud saving. By default the game will sync your last three save games to Steam. Sign in on another PS3 or even a PC with Portal 2 loaded and you can continue where you left off.
One small point was the sound level; woah that was quite high. For every other game (Destroy All Humans excepted) I've normally been able to leave speech at maximum and just turn down the music. For Portal 2 I had to turn down the master volume to about a third and then turn down the music
But for all those minor quibbles this is Portal and it's just damn near perfect.
[Update - Managed to try the co-op out with someone who's never played Portal before. They soon picked it up and much fun was had. One small point is that you can't save your progress. According to the forums it saves your progress and allows you to pick up from that point onwards, but some mention of this in the game would be nice.
I've now played the single player game twice and collected all single player achievements, most I picked up on the first run the trickier ones took my second run to complete. I must say I'm a little disappointed with the ending, but I don't know why I should be. In the original game you had your portals, cubes and buttons, and 'discouragement' lasers and in the finale just ended up using portals. In this game you get the same stuff but also repulsion gel, frictionless gel, portal gel, redirection cubes for the lasers, gravity tubes, faith plates, and hard light bridges. In the finale you use the portals with the three types of gel.
To get through the tests you have to combine these all up to pass and then only require half that information to beat the end. Just kind of flat.
It also lacks the challenge mode from the original though there are achievements in the co-op version for using X number of portals nothing like this exists within the single player game either as an achievement or as a challenge. With the way the game is structured I can understand why, but it is a shame.


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Watch CBSN Live
An autopsy confirms that the bodies found by hunters on Dec. 5, 2012 are the two young Iowa cousins who disappeared while riding their bikes in the summer. Lyric Cook-Morrissey, 10, and her 8-year-old cousin Elizabeth Collins vanished on July 13, 2012 near an Iowa lake. Authorities said the bodies are being sent to the state medical examiner's office to verify they are the missing cousins.
AboveCollins is seen in this undated personal photo.
Credit: Personal Photo
Credit: AP Photo/Waterloo Courier, Dawn J. Sagert
Credit: AP Photo/Waterloo Courier, Brandon Pollock
Credit: AP Photo/Waterloo Courier, Matthew Putney
Credit: AP Photo/Telegraph Herald, Jeremy Portje
Credit: AP Photo/The Waterloo Courier, Matthew Putney
Credit: AP Photo/The Waterloo Courier, Brandon Pollock
Credit: Facebook.com/MissingCases


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Spread the word, tune in and see industry giants unveil their latest shiny, sleek tech toys. Everything from cameras to computers to TV's and remote-controlled helicopters will be on display, and you'll get to hear commentary and interviews with tech writers, bloggers, and celebrities live from the show floor! It all kicks off Monday, January 9th in Las Vegas, so be sure to tune in to see live coverage from the following broadcasters:
Join TechCrunch staffers on the CES floor starting on Sunday, Jan. 8 at 4pm PT/7pm ET. They'll be live every day giving updates and sharing demos with viewers. [clear here]
CNET editors will be live from the show floor starting on Sunday with everything from a "Best of CES" awards show to interviews with celebrities to product reviews! They'll also be live all day Monday streaming press conferences! For a complete schedule, check their channel page. [clear here]
Leo Laporte/TWiT tv
Leo Laporte and his "This Week in Tech" team will be roaming the show floor all week discussing the latest product launches! [clear here]
Tech Podcast Network
The Tech Podcast Network will bring you live interviews with vendors from the show floor, a "pick of the day," and tons of interviews with attendees. [clear here]
Sony Press Conference
Monday, January 9 at 5pm PT/8pm ET
Want to get the first look at Sony's product lineup for 2012 and beyond? Tune in to their official press conference on Monday! [clear here]
Panasonic Press Conference
Panasonic will be broadcasting their official press conference from CES on Monday, Jan. 9 at 3pm PT/6pm ET. Then on January 10th and 11th, be sure to tune in to ask questions to Panasonic experts, celebrities, and media members. [clear here]
The Vergecast
Over the course of CES, the editors at The Verge will transform their operation into a mobile editorial and production studio to cover every development, press conference, and news item coming out of the conference.


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The Details:
Bentley unveiled the new Continental GT3 race car at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. This Le Mans ready vehicle is powered by a race and dry-sumped version of the 4-liter twin-turbo V8 engine with many components carried over from the road-going engine. 600hp is available via a motorsport engine management system and power is transmitted to the rear wheels by an Xtrac six-speed sequential gearbox and limited slip differential. For the best weight distribution, the gearbox is mounted as a transaxle and shifting is completed through a pneumatic shift system controlled by steering wheel paddles.
The GT3s suspension features a wishbone setup front and rear with four-way adjustable racing dampers. The steering system features hydraulic power-assistance for optimal turning power on track. And to stop the 600hp GT3, ventilated iron rotors are slowed by six-piston calipers up front and four-piston calipers to the rear.
Helping aerodynamics is a top-mounted carbon-fiber rear wing and carbon-fiber splitter. Revisions made to the hood, bumpers, fenders and sills both optimize the drag coefficient and help with engine cooling. All of this and more help to bring the GT3's weight down to the race number of 2866 pounds. Now, the GT3 will start its track development program preceding its first competition in the Blancpain Series 2014.
"The Continental GT3 exploits the incredible performance beneath the skin of every Continental GT. We've removed over 1000 kilograms [2204 lbs] of weight, reconfigured our 4.0-litre V8 to produce 600 bhp in race specification, and developed a comprehensive aerodynamic package to ensure that we perform competitively. We are now looking forward to getting the car on the track and proving its potential," stated Member of the Board for Engineering, Rolf Frech.
|Continental GT3 Specifications
|Engine 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, repositioned to the rear of the engine bay, Cosworth engine management system
|Power Approx. 600 bhp derestricted
|Oil System Dry sump
|Transmission Rear wheel drive, Xtrac six-speed sequential transaxle gearbox, racing clutch, steering wheel mounted paddle operated pneumatic gear shift
|Drivetrain Carbon fibre propshaft, limited slip differential
|Suspension Double wishbone suspension front and rear, four-way adjustable racing dampers
|Steering Hydraulic power-assisted steering
|Brakes Ventilated iron disc brakes front and rear, Brembo six-piston front calipers, four-piston rear calipers, driver-adjustable brake bias
|Safety FIA-specification steel roll cage, Sparco six-point FIA safety harness, onboard fire extinguisher, onboard pneumatic jack system.
|Fuel System FIA-specification racing fuel cell
|Electronics Race-specification ABS and traction control. Lightweight race battery.
|Wheels OZ Racing 18" x 13" rims
|Tyres 310 / 710 R18
|Aerodynamics Carbon fibre front splitter, rear wing and body panels. Lightweight, aerodynamically-optimised bumpers, bonnet, sills and fenders
|Length 194.8 inch
|Width 79.9 inch
|Height 53.1 inch
|Weight 2866 lbs
|Weight Distribution 52 : 48


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Food & Drink
See the arc of Mother Nature's beauty
Matthew Casey, Special to CNN • Updated 22nd August 2013
View Gallery
12 Pictures
Editor's Note — CNN.com's weekly Summer in the Park series turns to rangers at the United States' most popular national parks to get insider recommendations for your visits, whether you have just one day or can stay longer. The series will run through Labor Day.
During the summer, southeastern Utah's high desert is like a furnace where the wind whips hot air over a seemingly endless expanse of arid terrain. Particles of sand erode and are re-deposited in new areas, collapsing old formations and slowly building sedimentary rock that will hold up new ones.
The flora and fauna that live amidst those gusts are some of Mother Nature's toughest and most resourceful creations, enduring months without a drop of rain and withstanding desert heat and sub-freezing temperatures.
Arches National Park
is home to this wildlife as well as the world's highest concentration of natural sandstone arches. From the largest, Landscape Arch, to the tallest, Double Arch South, the park's 119 square miles are one of the most unique places on earth.
Park stats:
The visitor count at Arches has steadily increased since 2004.
The park drew more than one million guests last year and has averaged that many since 2008
The location:
Arches National Park is located in southeast Utah, about five miles north of Moab. There are airports in Moab, Salt Lake City, about four hours away and Grand Junction, Colorado, about two hours away.
If you go:
Park admission is $10 per vehicle. Individual admission is $5. Admission is valid for seven days.
Park passports are $25 and provide entry to Arches,
Canyonlands National Park
Hovenweep National Monument
Natural Bridges National Monument
. They are valid for one year.
The visitor center is open every day except Christmas, but be sure to
check the website
as hours change according to the season.
Meet our ranger:
Kait Thomas, an interpretive ranger at Arches National Park, grew up in Monrovia, Indiana. When she was 11, her dad started taking her on annual vacations to national parks in the western United States. The experience had a profound effect on her, she says.
"I knew I wanted to move west," says Thomas, 25. "I wanted to be a part of the beauty that you find in national parks."
But Thomas, 25, became a pre-law student when she moved to Salt Lake City for college. On the way back to school after a 2008 summer internship working for a political campaign, she had her "Aha!" moment, realizing she completed the dream to move west, but not the one to work for the national park service.
"I just waltzed in to Arches National Park visitor center and asked if they needed help," she says.
At first, the answer was "No, thanks." But Thomas says a combination of her stubbornness and a supervisor's willingness to listen during a 45-minute impromptu meeting led to her volunteering for six weeks in 2008. In 2009, the supervisor invited her to become a seasonal ranger. In 2010 Thomas became a full-time ranger.
"It really is the first part of the country that I fell in love with," she says. "There is something about the desert and how hostile, dramatic and colorful it is. You have this contrast of something that is incredibly harsh yet unbelievably delicate."
For a day trip don't miss:
The Windows trail hike. Thomas says the area has the highest concentration of arches in the park, including five that range from 60 to 100 feet high.
"It's a nice summary of the park," she says. "It's the most bang for the buck, if you will."
Favorite less-traveled spot:
Hiking to Tower Arch from Klondike Bluff. Thomas says reaching Klondike Bluff requires driving on a dirt road that will not support RVs or buses. It's about 3.5 miles from Klondike Bluff to tower Arch, she says.
"It's a great place to escape all the hustle and bustle you find everywhere else in the park," she says.
Favorite spot to view wildlife:
Courthouse Wash. Thomas says hot summer temperatures make seeing wildlife difficult. But you can see mule deer, coyotes and bobcats at Courthouse Wash as well as big horn sheep near the visitor center from October through December.
Most magical moment in the park:
Having lunch in the shade of Wall Arch the day before it collapsed in August of 2008.
Thomas said she was patrolling Devil's Garden Trail when the temperature hit 105, and she stopped at Wall Arch to rest and eat. The next day a group of tourists came into the visitor center and wanted to know why the trail was blocked. Thomas and other rangers went to investigate and discovered the arch had collapsed.
"I realized geology is always happening," she says. "One sand of grain could have fallen and the whole thing pops and collapses. We don't have any answers as to when (the arches will fall) but that is why it is so special to be here now."
Funniest moment in the park:
Discovering that five members of a Norteño band, dressed in full concert costume, had lugged their instruments three miles to Delicate Arch and began belting out tunes under its shade. (Norteño music generally comes from northern Mexico and Texas. It features an accordion that produces musical rhythms similar to polkas.)
"We informed them they needed a permit (to play inside the park)," she says.
Oddest moment at the park:
An excited family asking her to identify 10 species of lizards they captured, put in a black box and had planned to take home.
"I identified all their lizards and promptly made them put them back," she says.
It's illegal to remove wildlife from national parks.
A ranger's request:
Stay on the trails and off the arches. The land off the trails is home to biological earth crust which protects against erosion and takes decades to rejuvenate after being stepped on. The arches are all made of red sandstone, a mixture of quartz, feldspar and iron oxide. While they may look sturdy, they could collapse if you climb on them.
Carry more water than you think you need. Thomas says heat-related illnesses are the No.1 medical issue at the park. She recommends you drink a minimum of one gallon of water per day and carry salty snacks to maintain electrolyte levels.
Also, be sure to shake out your shoes before putting them on. That's because scorpions gravitate toward dark, cool spaces. If you see a rattlesnake on the trail, do not chase it. Thomas says the majority of rattlesnake bites that happen in the park are on peoples' hands.
Another park she'd like to visit:
Denali National Park
in Alaska.
"I've never been to Alaska and I want to see really raw, big mountains," Thomas says. "I'm always into the biggest and the best. I want to see something that is more primitive than anything else we have (here)."
A year of the world's
Best Beaches
There's a perfect beach for every week of the year. Join us on a 12-month journey to see them all
Go to the best beaches


text:
City allows residents to keep goats
The four present members of City Council voted unanimously to allow residents to keep goats in their yards. Previously, goats–- along with swine and sheep–- were banned. And that was just fine with St. Clair Avenue resident Naomi Roberts.
"Farm animals belong on the farm, not in city yards," said Roberts.
But fellow speaker-to-Council Clint Sherrill opined that goats are actually better for the environment than "the huge mass of dogs" he's seen in Charlottesville.
"If you're in favor of dogs, then you should have no problem with goats," Sherrill told Council.
The local chapter of a national group called the Goat Justice League had spearheaded the move, which limits residents to keeping three goats, which must remain under 100 pounds and be dehorned.
Goats have been credited with providing milk, cheese, as well as companionship and weed-removal. However, according to Charlottesville Goat Justice League founder Meghan Keith-Hynes, who also spoke to Council, they do not eat tin cans.
10:14am Wednesday update: Caption lengthened to reflect some conditions.
28 comments
Goats in the city ... nice. Why am I not surprised? Thank God I moved out to Fluvanna. We have animals, but not on 1/10 acre lots.
"This thing can now live in the city limits as long as it stays under 100 pounds, loses the horns, andââ?¬â? if maleââ?¬â? gets neutered."
Hum, perhaps this should be the requirement for a city politician...oh, maybe some of it is.
maybe mas has found a new source for "mountain oysters"
Them lil rascals
Wonder who the first Belmont resident will be to complain about goat bleating violating the new noise ordinance. When those little buggers get to dry-humping each other, it's quite a ruckus. This could have one benefit of delaying sending out bills for water and sewer, if meter readers are now supposed to also check the herd to make sure their jewels are not intact. Goats are also pretty good at escaping fenced yards -- so get ready to be butted when Billy decides to go out on a stroll.
Nice caption, Hawes. Well, if it works for Google ...
We don't need a circus we have Charlottesville, the biggest joke in Virginia.
Just Pointing Out,
That' right, it doesn't. Which is why I was annoyed by Don't Turn Your Back's comment.
so who has the job of checking if the males are neutered?
The goat in the picture is not allowed to live in city limits as they must be dehorned.
I'm still waiting for the day I don't have to keep my emu hidden in the basement.
Don't look back,
"Old Timer must have a pretty sore back, having to carry such instantly-jostled chips on his/her shoulder."
Projection {proh-jek-shun] - When an individual suffering from certain beliefs or behavioral patterns claims others have them in an attempt to hid it in themselves.
I'd say the 10 ton chip you have on your shoulder about Belmont residents and their noise battle must have caused your spine to collapse by now. Maybe that's why you want to project it on me. Otherwise why make a snide comment when the Hook's article is about goats?
I suspect a lot of goats will turn up in Belmont. I have yet to find one that bahhed at 95 decibels with bass eating through walls. Have you?
Personally I am glad I can eat out again at the 3 establishments in Belmont that won food awards without being assualted by the patrons and noise of the others. I'm spending a lot more money there again.
"But fellow speaker-to-Council Clint Sherrill opined that goats are actually better for the environment than ââ?¬Å?the huge mass of dogs" he's seen in Charlottesville."
Really? Having owned a few goats in years past I can say without a doubt that I would never have one near my home ever again.
"Old McDonnell had a farm
E i E i O!"
Well, look, to be realistic the city allows dogs and, no they do not regulate noise issues with dogs despite any theoretical laws pertaining to dog noise. So what's wrong with having goats? Certainly they make less noise than an eternally barking dog and does their sh%^ stink more? It actually stinks less. So what's the problem with goats.
For my part, dogs are the biggest nuisance people have to deal with in the city. I live near someone who has a German Shepherd tethered in his yard and that animal barks nonstop all day long and can be heard over the entire area. I'd trade that mutt for ten goats.
Sooooo, just a few idea's for dinner, or breakfast.
i say what will they do if they get loose? take it to the SPCA in their van that already isnt big enough to hold todays puppy dogs?
put it this way, with ch'ville being allowed to own goats, chickens and other farm animals, is mayor norris trying to say our town is a farm?
So a couple years ago we had the guy who shot the cat that climbed on his car and scratched it up... that got people up in arms... Are they going to require goat owners to post a bond to cover the cost to repaint the neighbor's car when the goat escapes the fence and climbs on the nearest "rock outcropping" that happens to be a shiny new SUV?
Keep them goats in Belmont!
I love it. I love the fact that somebody brought up the fact that if dogs are allowed, goats should be too.
I love Charlottesville.
The female goats?
Don't turn your back,
Hmmm. Still feeling resentful that the residents in Belmont are no longer 3rd class citizens and now get treated equally to those residents living in other areas zoned residential? You know, like Park Street?
Tell me, are you still upset about black people and women having the vote too?
You are welcome to make as much noise as you want in your own backyard.
Wow. Goats in the city. We have county people complaining about needing to pay for their citified services. County people complaining about shooters in 'developed' areas.
And now we have city people wanting to have goats like in the county.
Old Timer must have a pretty sore back, having to carry such instantly-jostled chips on his/her shoulder. Not sure what kind of mind logically connects ridiculing a goat-fetished city council and the civil rights movement -- maybe he/she can take a break form his/her glue sniffing and 'splain it. I sure don't live in Park Street digs, but speak from experience that goats are horny and noisy, disinclined to remain locked up in tiny city backyards, incredibly efficient at eating whatever they can get near, and prone to running up and head-butting people in the posterior. Too ornery to be treated as cute little urban pets by a city full of trust-fund hippies waiting around for their buddies to show up at Mas. And, no, you are not allowed to make as much noise as you want in your backyard -- that's what the noise ordinance prevents, genius.
"maybe mas has found a new source for ââ?¬Å?mountain oysters""
if that's in response to this:
"ââ?¬Å?This thing can now live in the city limits as long as it stays under 100 pounds, loses the horns, andââ?¬â? if maleââ?¬â? gets neutered."
Hum, perhaps this should be the requirement for a city politician"Šoh, maybe some of it is.""
Mr. Huja is the sole source for that among our current crop of councilors, and I suspect he would put up something of a fight.
Bring me the German Shepherd and I will buy you 10 goats! :)
This article has nothing to do with Belmont.